


Closer Than the Moon

by futureboy



Category: Sarah Jane Adventures
Genre: 10 + 1, Banter, Coming Out, Crushes, First Kiss, It's been FOREVER since I wrote a fic with actual English slang, M/M, Teen Years, University, also were you really gay in 2008 if you didn't sneak onto the Stonewall website when you could
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-03
Updated: 2019-09-03
Packaged: 2020-10-06 10:37:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,766
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20505590
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/futureboy/pseuds/futureboy
Summary: The main difference between Luke and himself, Clyde reckons, is down to luck.Five times Luke didn’t get caught out, five times Clydedidget caught out, and one time they took each other by surprise.





	Closer Than the Moon

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t think I’ve published SJA fic since season 1 aired…
> 
> Well, here we are. Rewatched it with my sister recently and it’s just as delightful as I remember it being. Rather nice to write British English dialogue for once, too.

**[Luke - 1]**

It might be that it’s not supposed to be familiar, Luke thinks, but the way that Clyde saunters into the attic and throws himself into a slouch against the steps definitely feels that way. It’s after school, and the three of them are meeting up to hang out and try to squeeze in some revision, and there’s no alien activity of note to interrupt them. The last bit is definitely not normal - he knows that, at least.

But Luke doesn’t have a lot of ‘familiarity’ as a concept to compare Clyde to. He just feels… lucky, maybe. That he’s managed to make friends with someone who almost didn’t want to hang around him in the first place.

“S’empty up here,” Clyde frowns. He’s pulled out a can of Dr Pepper and a Sharpie, and he’s currently crosshatching a scribble stating ‘**2008!**’ on the back of his Maths book.

Luke opens his messages. “Maria said she’d be here in half an hour or so,” he says. Right on cue, an additional SMS tone cuts through the attic’s stillness: “she’s, er...”

“Don’t tell me it’s the French homework,” says Clyde. “She should just do what the rest of us do. _ ‘On the weekend, I went to the cinema with my brother and played football’_… Who gives a monkey’s if you even have a brother? It doesn't matter.”

“No,” Luke smiles, biting his lip, “apparently she’s trying to explain what a deadlock seal is to Mr Jackson. And the argument’s been going back and forth for almost an hour, now.”

Clyde drawls a big swirl in the dot of the exclamation mark. “Ouch. Better her than me.”

“Definitely.”

As soon as he says it, he knows that he’s miscalculated this particular social script in some way, because Clyde’s back straightens out and his expression clouds over. “Oi,” he says, “what’s that s’posed to mean?!”

“Am I not supposed to agree?”

“No!” he says, “you’re not! You don’t _ confirm _that someone’s stupid when they say sommat that suggests it. That’s gonna make every girl you ever talk to threaten you with a slap, mate.”

“I don’t think you’re stupid,” Luke says. Which is true. “I just know that you don’t really understand what a deadlock seal is any more than Mr Jackson.”

“I could,” Clyde mutters. He’s polka-dotting the yellow page, now, dabbing at the second zero like a piece of pop art.

“Maria’s only over the road,” grins Luke, “she’s already giving a lesson. I’m sure she won’t mind if you sit in.”

With narrowing eyes, Clyde fixes him with an almost maternal suspicion. “You took too quickly to the cheekiness lessons,” he says. “What a mistake. What a disaster. I’ve taught you _ too _ well and it’ll be the ruin of me.”

The cheekiness lessons had gone as such - you can be rude, but only when your mate is okay with being rude back to you. Otherwise, it’s just Not Cool. Luke’s found that cheekiness has to be smiley, for a start, and that he’s also got a natural talent for it with his default setting of ‘innocent bluntness’.

Being rude is funny when you’re friends, apparently.

So Luke throws him a bright smirk and an _ extremely _ choice gesture.

Clyde gasps in fake-horror. “Luke Bubbleshock Smith!” he accuses, punctuating it with a pointing finger that’s decidedly PG.

In an insane stroke of recognition, Luke’s brain compares him to the ‘**2008!**’, picturing Clyde as a human version of the Maths book graffiti, and he feels like he’s suddenly laughed all of the air out of his body.

“I can’t _ believe _ you’d flick that kind of hand signal at me! The disrespect of it all! The _ nerve_! I should wash your mouth out with soap, young man.”

“Didn’t come from my mouth, though, did it? It was my _ hand_.”

Clyde gets this look on his face, like he’s thinking, _ oh, he’s _ _ far_ _ too smug about this_. “It’s only a matter of time until, though,” he defends. “Got to nip it in the bud before you go gallivanting about, effing and jeffing and bringing down property values across West London.”

Luke considers it.

Really, he does.

In the end, though, he decides that repeating the gesture would be funnier.

A hiss: “I’ve never been so insulted in my life. This is an _ outrage_.”

“Clyde,” he wheezes uselessly, as tears start to shine on his lashes, but Clyde pretends not to listen.

“Sarah Jane!” he yells, “Sarah Jane, Luke’s being-- _ mmph_!”

“Shush!” Luke cackles, arming himself with another pillow as Clyde recovers from a surprisingly well-aimed strike. “She’ll actually come up here!”

“Good!” he retorts, peeling the pillow from his face, and himself from off the floorboards. “Sarah Jane might be able to set you straight better than I can. I hope she kicks you up the jacksey and puts you on a soap-based diet.”

Luke would be concerned, except Clyde’s grinning as widely as he is, so there’s no mistaking that they’re still alright. The power of cheekiness, shining through.

“You don’t mean that,” he says.

“I _ do_.”

There’s the distant, rhythmic beat of high heels on the staircase, and the two of them freeze. Sarah Jane’s coming.

They eye each other for a second. Clyde squints suspiciously, but eventually, at the same time, each gingerly place their respective cushions against their backs. Out of reach, and almost out of sight.

A truce.

“My middle name’s not _ Bubbleshock_,” Luke mumbles.

Clyde smothers laughter into his tie, just as Sarah Jane bustles through the attic door.

* * *

**[Clyde - 1]**

The main difference between Luke and himself, Clyde reckons, is down to luck.

Luke, for example - who’s his best mate in the world, so no offence and stuff - is properly bad at lying. He finds it hard to tell _ jokes_, for goodness sakes, purely because the punchline isn’t always ‘right’, and though he’s gotten a lot better over the years, he’s… Well, he slips up occasionally. And it makes him sound a bit strange.

And Clyde knows that he’s got a penchant for being a weaselly little sneak of a teenager at the best of times. Let alone the worst of times.

Unfortunately, without luck, neither of those qualities _ actually _ matter. 

Clyde’s cursed with remarkably grotty luck. The best thing that ever happened to him was Bannerman Road, and to be honest, he thinks that nothing else good would’ve ever happened again if it hadn’t been for the bloody _ Slitheen _ of all beings. He’s great at improvising, mostly, but the universe saw this and apparently went, “hey, nope! We gotta level this out and make sure you don’t get too big for your Total 90s!”

People don’t believe him. People don’t always trust him. And whenever Clyde wants to keep something under wraps, there’s half a chance he’ll be caught in the act.

Especially if it’s important. Mum’s birthday pressie? Easy peasy, shove it in the back of his wardrobe until the big day and she’ll never suss. He’s sixteen, she’ll never be rooting around in his things.

Need to bunk off fifth period to save the world from rabid gerbil people, though? Nope! Mr. Chandra won’t give a monkey’s uncle if there’s mouth foam and fur and invasion shenanigans. _ You can spend your time revising in the library like everyone else, Clyde. _ Not to mention weird almost-dreams he gets sometimes. The nightmares that start with him following energy signals into the Royal Hope, and end with him waking up breathless, hospital smells in the back of his throat and a new appreciation for oxygen in the forefront of his brain.

(He can’t explain that one. And Luke can’t even dream. But for the record, he’d helped save the world from space gerbils remotely on that day - the librarian already hated him, so what was a loud phone call or two more?)

“You, though, Luke,” he explains, “you get the trust. You get the belief. It’s right jammy, is what it is, I think you’d get away with keeping loads of secrets.”

“I don’t like lying, though. And you get away with _ murder_,” Luke points out. “You’re not exactly blabbing about the existence of aliens on News 24. As far as I can tell, UNIT’s not harassing you _ or _ your mum, either, so it can’t be that bad.”

“...Yet.”

“Don’t be such a misery,” he grins. With a bigger stretch than necessary, Luke folds his hands behind his head and flops back against the mattress.

And Clyde can’t help but gawk.

In the evening light of his room, Luke’s all muted browns, and the heather grey of his t-shirt, and warm lamplit skin in Edison bulb yellows. Clyde thinks he looks like a colour swatch, a palette, something taken from British 35mm film. Something between the nineties and noughties. Analogue, and semi-tangible. They’d met as soft and roughened children, and now the look was classic.

(Maybe Clyde only gets caught when it concerns things he’d like for himself.)

“What?” says Luke, and turns his head with considerable effort. “Why are you staring? Don’t tell me UNIT really _ have _ paid a visit.”

“Yeah, the Brig rang my mum’s doorbell and did a runner before she could answer. You’re a pillock,” Clyde snarks, and gets a lazy foot jabbed in his side for his trouble.

* * *

**[Luke - 2]**

It’s possible Clyde has a point about secrets.

Luke’s _ counterpoint_, though - he always needs one with Clyde, for purposes of both scientific integrity and also just to annoy him a bit - is that Luke’s secrets are easier to keep. He has less people involved with his. Clyde’s sociality is a strength and a downfall. People _ notice _ him.

Luke’s good at not being noticed these days. Makes for less awkward questions.

Especially when he’s cramming time in after school, with ten minutes to spare between his last lesson and Clyde and Rani’s impatient searching. His mind ticks seconds off as soon as that last bell rings. Seven hundred and four of them are left.

It’s a shame the computers are so flipping _ slow_.

He can’t ask Mr. Smith about this kind of thing, though. It’s decidedly un-sneaky.

Four hundred and ninety one seconds. It’s a prime number. He’s desperately punching buttons on the photocopier with trembling fingers, willing it to work, when Ms. Hollie creeps up behind him.

“Last minute essay printing, Luke?”

Luke jumps a foot in the air, and hopes he covered it up well enough. “Yeah, a bit,” he laughs shakily, trying to hide his printouts, “things got really busy, _ really _ quickly.”

“They always do,” she smiles. “Make sure you log off the computer, love.”

“I will.”

And mercy of all mercies - she leaves.

Luke exhales. There’s not enough carbon dioxide in the universe to measure his relief in.

He staples sheets with shocking inaccuracy. Scrambles for the mouse and clicks randomly at his actual assignment, the finished investigation on water hardness he’d typed up yesterday covering up the other files on the printer records. Clyde would be so proud. It’s not like he has time to erase the data, not with one hundred and forty nine seconds left. Not with his brain going _ prime, prime, prime _ in appropriate intervals.

He’s just about to exit his session when Rani pops her head round the door.

“There you are! We’ve been looking for you.”

“Sorry,” he says. It’s half to her, and half to the machine - he discreetly holds down the power button on the computer tower until the monitor goes blank. “Had to do some printing.”

“Well, hurry up, brainbox,” she says cheerily, “Clyde’s whinging for ice cream and it’s not gonna be this sunny again for a while!”

“Coming,” says Luke.

He stuffs the papers - school-related and otherwise - into his bag.

At the bottom of the stapled packet, a haphazardly aligned URL runs along the footer. _ Stonewall.org.uk. _

Along the top is a section entitled: _ The School Report. (Based on a survey with over 1,000 young LGB people and their experiences at school, includes 10 recommendations on how to tackle homophobic bullying 2007). _ This is followed by resources under the uncomfortably revealing title of: _ Some People Are Gay - Get Over It! _

Luke hides them under his mattress that evening. He hopes that if a higher power does exist, then it’ll stop his mum from finding them before he’s ready to talk about it.

* * *

**[Clyde - 2]**

Sarah Jane’s told them to go home - and go home Clyde _ shall_, he smells faintly of burning plastic and he’s got leftover takeaway in the fridge. Indian for tea yesterday had turned out to be a stroke of genius.

“It’s great, I’ve never got the energy to cook after an explosion, or twenty,” he’s saying, dragging his hand down the banister as Rani and Luke follow. “Imagine if you wanted your favourite meal and you’d just been blown up half a dozen times. Way too much effort. And _ Luke’s _ favourite food is steak and ale pie. Never mind making it from scratch, I’d knacker myself using the tin opener on a soggy Fray Bentos.”

He’s in the hall by the time he realises neither are responding to him.

“What?” he asks. His trainers slap against the tiling as he turns to face them. “I know reheating saag paneer isn’t _ that _conventional, but I didn’t think you’d hold it against me.”

“We’re not,” says Luke quietly. “We just didn’t want Mum to hear.”

“Mum to hear _ what_?”

Rani swallows heavily. “We wanted to ask you. About whatever that business was with the Orissian… Before the factory started going off.”

Clyde feels his stomach drop through the floor.

“You-- You saw that?” he asks.

“Yeah,” says Rani. Luke nods firmly from beside her.

“Oh.”

“We just wanna know what happened, we’re not cross or anything.”

Ah. Suddenly the idea of stuffing his face with naan bread isn’t so appealing anymore. “I dunno what you want me to say,” he says, “they crashed, they met me first, we hit it off. Next thing you know, I’m either about to send them home or to their death.”

“So you… kissed it.”

“They’re a ‘they’,” Clyde says sharply, jabbing a finger dangerously close to Luke’s left eyebrow, “and their name was Maquire, don’t go around saying _ ‘it’ _ or _ ‘the Orissian’ _ like I kissed a Roswell rando--”

“You kissed Maquire,” says Rani flatly.

“_Yes_. You saw it. Why are you still asking?”

“Because you snogged an alien,” Luke grins. Rani starts to giggle into the back of her hand. “That’s simultaneously the weirdest and coolest thing ever.”

“Sarah Jane just helped launch an actual space rocket and I did the cool thing?” he asks in disbelief. “You two are unbelievable. You’re like paparazzi, I can’t do anything without you lot interfering.”

Rani draws a tick in the air with a _ ding_! “Was it nice?” she beams.

“Yeah, it was very nice.”

“Was it ‘Jamie Ashworth kissing me in front of the Eiffel Tower on the Year 11 French trip’ nice?”

Clyde snorts. “Shove off.”

“Orissians have a specialised nervous system which echoes back input,” Luke says animatedly, “so any kind of physical touch is reflected back on the contributor in question.”

He wants to curl his lip, and loudly crow _ we all knew that! _, because they’d just weaponised that fact to liberate the poor sod and send him back to space. He’s interrupted before he gets the chance. “I think what Luke’s trying to say,” says Rani, “is that if it was nice, then it was all your fault.”

He opens the door with an exaggerated eye roll. “Do you have to put it like _ that_?” he asks. “I don’t like the idea that my going about and kissing whoever is, I don’t know, a bit like a car crash or something.”

“Is that what it _ really _ felt like?”

“Go home,” he says, and lets her pass into the street. “You’re a pain in the neck, Chandra.”

“Didn’t think it had gotten that far!” she shouts back, and skips over to number thirty-six before he can retaliate.

He stands in the porch for a second. It’s dark out, now - the whole world seems navy blue, with the exception of the warm white light Luke’s lounging in from the houselights in the hall.

“Want me to walk you back?”

“I’m a big boy, Lukey-Luke. Not necessary.”

“Just checking,” he says. Then he grins. “You snogged an alien.”

“Yep,” Clyde confirms, and holds his hands up in mock-surrender. “You caught me.”

“I won’t tell Mum. But she wouldn’t mind anyway.”

“You’d better not,” he says, jabbing another threatening hand towards Luke, “‘cos if you do, I’ll-- I’ll tell her about when you walked in on that life drawing session last term.”

“That was an _ accident_,” Luke groans. It forces laughter out of Clyde’s lungs.

And it keeps on taking him by surprise, in odd, giggly bursts, the whole way back to his house.

* * *

**[Luke - 3]**

It’s one thing to hear the occasional, off-hand comment. The sorts that strike you weirdly in the chest like a slightly-stubbed little toe. Faintly aching, and demanding to be acknowledged properly.

It’s a whole other thing when your mum won’t _ stop _ talking about it.

“--and it’s such a gorgeous place, the architecture is so _ human_! No influences like in parts of London - not that that’s a bad thing, but sometimes it’s nice to see parts of your own species without being reminded that other beings are always keeping an eye on us. That might be a bit like how you feel about coming home, I imagine. I bet your student digs are _ beautiful_. And I bet the people are so friendly, too, are they friendly, Luke?”

“Yeah, Mum,” he says, “everyone’s really nice.”

“There must be so many smart women there,” Sarah Jane says, with a twinkle in her eye.

“And smart men,” he says simply. “Everyone in my dorm wants to look out for me, anyway. It’s like I gained ten parents in a single month.”

Sarah Jane titters softly into her teacup. “I can see how that might be a problem for you, if you wanted to find a girlfriend.”

“...I don’t.”

Her face falls - she’s worried she’s upset him. “Oh, no, Luke, that’s fine. I didn’t mean to push a deadline on you, don’t worry.”

“Oh, I’m fine with finding _ someone_,” he says, matter-of-fact as he can muster. “They just won’t be a girl.”

Sarah Jane stares.

“They’ll be a ‘he’,” Luke clarifies.

She puts down her teacup.

“Because… Because I’m gay, Mum,” he finishes, and waits for the reaction.

Sarah Jane plonks herself into the space beside him with her usual, unshakeable elegance, and pulls him into a tight, affectionate embrace.

“Oh, Luke… I had no idea!” she says, muffled into his hair, “I’m so sorry--”

He laughs despite himself. Wow, this really wasn’t as nerve-wracking as everything had made it out to be - although that might just be because his mother is Sarah Jane Smith, and she’s seen and known more shocking things than a spot of homosexuality. “Mum, you weren’t _meant_ to know. I’m ready _ now_, and that’s why I told you. You don’t have to be sorry.”

She draws back. Luke notes, with a surge of endearment, that she’s tearing up behind her huge smile. “When did you get so good at keeping secrets?” she says softly, holding his face, and he smiles against her palms.

“Learnt from the best, didn’t I?”

Raised eyebrows: “not Clyde, then.”

“Nope.”

She lets him go with a full-bodied chuckle, and picks up her tea again.

“Love you,” Luke says. She knows this, of course, but he likes to make sure.

“I love you too. Make sure you bring back the best boy in Oxford.”

“When I’ve got the whole universe at my fingertips? No chance,” he points out, “I’m not going to limit myself to one single place, Mum, I still have options.”

“That’s very true,” she says, and takes a pensive sip.

There’s a gentle silence.

Then Sarah Jane nestles her teacup in its saucer with a faint _ clink_, and says, “there was a man I used to travel with who was bisexual, you know. Last I heard, he and his boyfriend were arrested in China for hacking off a piece of the Great Wall…”

“Well, I’m not going to elope to deface a Wonder of the World,” says Luke.

“Good,” smiles Sarah Jane, “even if it _ is _ alien, I should hope that you know better than to get caught.”

She finishes her cup of tea, and that’s the end of that.

* * *

**[Clyde - 3]**

Clyde has just sworn in front of the headmaster.

He can feel his blood pressure physically rising - his pulse is rumbling round his ears, thrumming with fear and terror and an undercurrent of what he can only recognise as _ being hacked off beyond belief_, because this wasn’t supposed to happen and it is So Very Not Cool.

Swearing - incredibly loudly, mind you - is somehow the least _ and _most of his worries.

“Language,” Haresh says anyway. He blinks, and frowns at his own automatic response, before raising an eyebrow at Clyde.

Clyde’s still frozen in the corridor. He can’t move.

At his feet are the scattered leaves of several printed out pages, plus two books. He’d hidden the books between blank sheets of paper and a half-empty exercise book, just in case someone had spotted what he’d been reading, but a _ fat _ lot of good it did when he’d careened into the flippin’ _ headteacher_, as well as his best friend’s dad who also hated him, because now his extra-curricular material is strewn all over the floor.

_ LGBT History Month Presentation 2010. _

_ Department of Health, NHS Briefing 3 - Young lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) people. Briefings for health and social care staff. _

_ Schools-out.org.uk - Student Tool Kit. _

For god’s sake, it’s face up in front of them, making itself known by Haresh’s shoes like a seething pet cat. _ The Schools OUT Student Tool Kit is for young people in any British secondary educational setting who are – or are perceived to be - lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender/transsexual or queer (LGBTQ). It is also useful for your friends and family members. _

“Would you believe me if I said it was for a mate, Sir?” he asks weakly.

Haresh looks him dead in the eye. “I’ve never believed you in my life, Clyde Langer,” he says firmly, “and I’m not about to start now. Are you going to stand there all day, or would you like the caretakers to see your revision as well?”

“Right you are,” Clyde mutters.

He crouches, feeling his knees wobble and click as he bends to retrieve his research. There’s a brief second of disbelief where he can’t quite understand what’s happening - but then he realises that Haresh has also crouched down, and is neatly arranging stacks of printouts in the correct paper order.

He wants to say something. He doesn’t know what to say, though.

For once, Clyde opts to keep his trap shut.

He takes a deep breath before he stands up. Oxygen - it’s a wonderful thing, but a burst of recollection hits him, of the Royal Hope nightmare he has some nights. Where it rains on the Moon, and Sarah Jane can’t save them… Notwithstanding the reality of Ruby White almost sending him to a smothering doom. He didn’t wanna die closeted in a stifling space prison, thank you very much.

It’s comforting to _ try _ to appreciate the odd lungful of air, as he takes baby steps towards the love he deserves to give Planet Earth. Phone calls don’t cut it in the long run.

He’s also trying not to show his horror.

Haresh hands over a stack of his papers, and Christ on a _ bike_, the top page is about _ sexual health precautions_. “You know,” he says, his lips taut, like being nice is physically difficult for him, “we have an excellent anti-bullying policy in this school.”

“I know, Sir.”

“If there’s any trouble for your friend, he can use the usual channels.”

“I _ know_, Sir.”

Then Haresh very nearly smiles. It’s a close one. “I suppose I don’t have to worry about you and my daughter hanging around with each other anymore, do I?”

Clyde can’t be bothered to explain the concept of bisexuality to Haresh Chandra. Let alone being _ pan_sexual. That would be way too much work.

Not to say it _ wouldn’t _ be really funny, of course, but he’s had a very difficult day, and he’s _ very _tired. Also, Rani probably wouldn’t take kindly to the phrase ‘girls are still on the cards’ if it included her. He opts to keep it to himself for the time being, and allow Haresh his small comforts. There’s actually a more pressing matter he wants to clear up.

“You’re not gonna tell her, are you, Sir?” he asks instead. “Like… Y’know. Rani. Don’t tell her. I haven’t done it yet.”

“You haven’t?!” Haresh says sharply.

Clyde shakes his head. “Or my mum,” he says, feeling uncomfortably vulnerable, “or Sarah Jane, or… Or anyone. Don’t beat me to it.”

Haresh is positively gawking.

“Please,” Clyde tacks on as an afterthought.

With a squaring of his shoulders and the adjustment of his tie, Haresh shakes his head slightly, clearing stray thoughts and remarks until the correct response can pass safely. “Of course not,” he says, in the tone one might use to say _ don’t be so stupid_. “You’ve barely even told _ me _ yet. Whenever you’re ready, Clyde - that’s usually the way you do things, anyway, so there’s not much I can do to stop you.”

“Cool,” says Clyde, and jams his work into his rucksack. He can’t think of anything else to say. Even though he’s preparing himself, wanting to finally be _ ready _ for this new thing he’s got to tell everyone, his artist’s hands are still failing him in instances like this.

“Everything’s okay, though, isn’t it?” Haresh says suddenly.

Clyde cringes at himself. “Haresh,” he says seriously, “I’ve got a handle on it. I appreciate the concern, and you’re being a top bloke about this whole thing, but if you don’t let me go home now then I’ll do something like hug you. It’d be awkward for all involved parties, trust me.”

“Noted,” says Haresh. His lip’s curled in horror at the mere thought.

Clyde so desperately wants to laugh, but instead, he hightails it out of there. No sense pushing his luck even further.

* * *

**[Luke - 4]**

Luke _ loves _ shopping. Not even in the designer clothes type of spending; it's purely by way of necessities and weekly groceries. He finds it one of life’s little luxuries.

Plus, he likes to add up his total before getting to the checkout, which is always fun.

He’s finally used up his bottle of shampoo from home - it’s the first time he’s buying shampoo since he started university. Which is a menial statement, but a fact nonetheless. He can’t help but think in them. Like how the aisle the shampoo is down holds approximately three times as many products as the fresh vegetables aisle, just because the bottles and tubes are smaller and easier to display. Or like how on Thursday evenings, the place is almost empty, and it’s easier to take his time without dodging other shoppers.

Empty-handed, Luke approaches the shelves of shampoo. They’re all in a row, like tall lines of plastic soldiers.

On a whim, he takes the closest bottle, pops the cap, and holds it to his face. Apple. It’s nice, but it’s not what he’s looking for.

There’s no-one around - Thursday evenings, he reminds himself, he’s a _ genius _ sometimes - so he doesn’t feel too self conscious about smelling bottle after bottle of soapy, fruity scents, trying to find something that fits the strangely human impulse he’s experiencing.

The jojoba one is nice, too. He tucks it under his arm, but keeps searching regardless.

_ Click. _ He flips open the lid of another.

Luke’s knees wobble suddenly when his brain recognises the smell. Coconut, with the unplaceable, harsh undercurrent that runs through most men’s toiletry scents. It’s a brand he’s used before, familiar in the shower rack of the Langer’s bathroom.

…It’s the shampoo that Clyde uses.

Luke looks quickly over his shoulder, as though an Asda shop assistant could materialise from thin air and target him for having Confusing Feelings. 

Thank goodness for quiet Thursday evenings. For student loans, and for what Sanjay’s dubbed his _ shaggy emo haircut_, and for teenage sleepovers that cemented the smell of coconut into his memory forever. He glances between the sensible jojoba option, and the risky emotional one, wondering which to pick.

Luke walks away with both bottles.

* * *

**[Clyde - 4]**

“Gunge! More bloody gunge,” Rani’s chanting angrily, “it’s Clyde, it’s always him, he’s a flippin’ magnet for it--”

“It’s not gunge. It’s a type of oil!” Luke corrects.

Clyde almost misses the look Rani shoots him - the one that says _ if we didn’t have bigger problems on our hands, I would _ _ so_ _ throttle you right now _ \- because they’re running for their lives! Again! It’s the same old story of _ ‘we stumbled across an alien lair, not to mention the aliens, and now we’d rather not die horribly’_.

So ‘time to run’, and all that.

They’d never have escaped, if it hadn’t been for a cyborg-android-mecha unit (Clyde can never remember the difference) with the assigned name of Gre-Igoire.

(“Alright if I call you Greg?” Clyde had asked.

“I am indifferent to all forms of address,” it had said brightly, “although the usual form is _ Metal Scum_!”

Clyde had felt his heart break into tiny smithereens at that moment. God, there were some species that didn’t respect artificial intelligence… And they had machinery at their fingertips that was _ way _ less creepy than Siri.)

“We’ve only got ten minutes until the Verspexian computer systems start shutting down,” Rani shouts, “I hope Sarah Jane’s still waiting outside-- Clyde, what is the _ matter _with you?!”

“Nothing!” he says hastily, “nothing at all.” But he knows he’s been caught out again, that she’s seen him looking over his shoulder, and that she’ll want to know what he’s looking back for.

“Is something following us?”

“No!”

“Then what’s the problem?” she asks, and skitters to a halt.

“We’ve got to keep moving, come on,” Clyde says. He’s trying to change the subject.

It almost works, too.

But then Luke touches his arm, just above the elbow. It’s punctuated by distant sparking explosions. Not to mention Clyde’s _ stupid _ pounding heartbeat.

He turns to see his best mate, covered in gel and congealing ooze and oil, looking unfairly good-looking despite his ruined t-shirt and his hair darkly sticking to his forehead. It’s weird how easy it is to forget about Luke’s super-memory. But the point stands that he and Luke are close, and Luke has the advantage of remembering Clyde’s quirks and tendencies better than anyone else in the world.

Clyde can’t help but get attached to robots. K-9. The Automatons. He doesn’t have the mental filter that everyone else does, the one that stops him from attaching personality and integrity and _ dignity_, to some extent, to aluminium husks and bodies.

And Luke knows this.

“Greg,” he says simply, and Clyde nods.

“What?”

“Rani,” he continues, “We’ve left someone behind. I’ve got time to download Verspexian android schematics _ and _ map their consciousness blueprints, Mr Smith can salvage everything… Do you still have that USB stick on you?”

“You know me so well,” Clyde says weakly, instead of _ you mean everything to me_, or _ I love you_, and follows Luke over to the nearest console.

Rani huffs. She rifles in her pockets, handing over five gigabytes of wonder, and Clyde thinks that he loves her just the same.

* * *

**[Luke - 5]**

They’re just sat there watching crap telly when Luke blurts it out.

He doesn’t even mean to. Clyde’s always been fascinated with their run in with the MITRE headset and Luke’s (mostly) dormant telekinetic abilities, given that he was trapped in Xylok cyberspace, so when Luke busts out the odd party trick, he always pays full attention. Clyde hates missing out on stuff.

Luke can’t even _ do _ a lot, telekinesis-wise. It’s simply that whatever door was unlocked by bringing down the moon never _ fully _ closed again.

So one moment, he’s summoning the remote control from the other side of the coffee table, and Clyde’s gazing at the scraping of plastic on wood with wonder. Like Luke’s moving _ mountains, _ instead of being too lazy to sit up and reach out.

And under that kind of scrutiny, he knows that he’ll need to explain himself before Clyde notices anything amiss.

“Me and Sanjay. We’ve broken up.”

“What?” Clyde says. He scrambles to sit up straight, pulling down the back of every single sofa cushion in the process. “Luke, mate, I’m so sorry, that’s rubbish. Some friend I am, I didn’t even notice--”

“No, it’s okay,” says Luke, knowing that he writes things all over his face, “I didn’t want you to catch me being sad or anything, and not know why. So I thought I’d just… Tell you.”

“Oh, Luke,” says Clyde. The corners of his mouth turn downwards. “Oh, no…”

He sounds just like Luke’s mum. That’s what does it.

Luke’s bottom lip starts to wobble.

“I’m so sorry,” Clyde murmurs again. “Do you… d’ya want a hug, or sommat…?”

Luke’s at serious risk of crying into his limp checkered neckscarf if this continues - it’s so uncharacteristic for Clyde not to crack a joke to break the tension. It almost makes him flinch. Clyde’s gentle in friendship, once you get to know him - especially with Rani, Luke notes, despite their spiky back-and-forth attacks - but it’s so rare for him to display it with _ him_. He’s always taken aback by it, when it comes out in that defensive and masculine fashion Clyde can’t seem to help.

So Luke stares bullet holes into the TV cabinet, and whispers, “that sounds really nice, actually.”

“C’mere,” says Clyde.

He slinks an arm around the back of the sofa. Luke collapses into Clyde’s left shoulder, exhausted and sad, and tries to swallow the painful lump in his throat.

“Are you still mates?”

“Yeah,” Luke says. “I think it was good. The breakup.”

He says it even though it doesn’t make sense. Breakups were bad. That was what telly and literature and stories and people had told him his entire life. If a breakup scenario was bad, then could there ever be a _ good _ breakup? Even if he and Sanjay were still on friendly terms? He wonders if they would turn into Alan and Chrissie Jackson, where they both still cared about each other, but one of them couldn’t help but hurt the other.

He hopes not.

Clyde shifts in his seat, turning to wrap both arms around Luke properly, and Luke clings back.

“I’m sorry,” Clyde says again.

“It’s not your fault,” Luke says, mumbling into the hood of Clyde’s jumper. “You don’t have to keep on saying sorry.”

“I’m not saying it was my fault, I’m saying sorry for the situation,” Clyde explains. He still hasn’t let go. His embrace is still tight and comforting. “I’m having a feeling on your behalf. ‘Cos breakups? Notoriously grotty, those.”

Luke doesn’t want to move. It’s warm and less sad, sat here like this, but there’s something in the back of his brain shouting the place down that _he has to move, it’s not time yet._ While he doesn’t understand it, his instincts are entitled to a bit of attention from time to time.

He draws back, wipes his eyes, mumbles a ‘thank you’, and turns back to the telly. He and Clyde, too distracted to watch a film, spend the whole evening watching Pointless or The Chase or whatever else they can get their hands on. And if Clyde passes the Bombay mix over more often - and if Luke exerts his minuscule abilities, making lentils go down the back of Clyde’s neck more accurately (to the latter’s delight) - then neither of them mention it out loud.

* * *

**[Clyde - 5]**

“He’s in the kitchen, darlin’,” says Carla, as soon as she opens the door, and Luke grins. She’s fumbling with a handbag and her keys.

Part of the reason Luke’s come over is because he was invited. Part of _ that _ was because Carla was out for the weekend with her lady friends from work. Clyde had said to bring a decent red over - _ none of that cheap student nonsense, you’re a graduate now! _\- so Luke had trundled over in his car, and was fully intending to make it a complete three-day doss. He deserved it, to be honest. Flat hunting, now that he has to pay council tax and the like, is extremely depressing in West London.

“God knows what he’s making in there, I hope it’s something special - make sure he cleans up, okay?”

“I will.”

“I know you will,” she smiles, patting Luke’s cheek affectionately. “Have a good time.”

“And you, Carla!” he beams - Carla holds the front door open for him so they can swap places, and he gives her a delighted little wave as she ducks into her car.

As soon as he closes it, he hears distant music coming from further in. The cars are silenced against the frosted glass. It’s just faint sizzling and….

Frank Sinatra?

The track sounds familiar, but it’s not quite right, somehow, not the original recording. He creeps into the house.

_ Then afterwards, we drop into_\-- “A quiet little place, and have a drink or two,” Clyde murmurs, singing softly over the top of the track.

Luke hovers in the hallway, bathed in light from the living room. 

Peering around the wall, he can see Clyde’s back is turned, as his friend busies himself over a saucepan. There’s a machine slowly cooking chips next to the hob, and something in the oven, hidden behind his legs.

_ I practice every day, to find some clever lines to say, to make the meaning come through… But then I think I'll wait until the evening gets late-- _

Clyde shifts absently on his heels, swaying to the rhythm and revealing the light from the oven. It’s a pie, and Luke would have wagered his entire maintenance loan for third year that it’s a steak and ale pie, because it’s his _ favourite_, and Clyde appears to be in a mood he’ll loudly deny if Luke mentions it.

_ And then I go and spoil it all, by saying somethin’ stupid... _

Luke’s secretly very pleased with himself for bringing good wine over. Now he _ really _ hopes Clyde approves.

He lets his mate have the last lines of Carla’s Robbie Williams CD before making his presence known - it’s not cool to embarrass people like that. Even Luke’s got the minimum subtlety for this scenario.

* * *

**[Both]**

They’re stranded and lost. That’s fairly standard.

Not being in a hurry is a bit of a bloody treat, though. At this point in their lives, it’s quite the perk _ not _ to be being chased by hellbent E.T., or whatever.

“The gravity’s weird, I’m telling you.”

“Look, Luke, just because you have a slight pep in your step doesn’t mean that we’re in space,” Clyde reasons, “it would be _ cool_, sure, but I’m fairly difficult to shift off-world. Remember?”

“Grounded by the Judoon,” Luke grumbles. “I remember. Also, ha _ ha, _ I can still travel.”

“Oi, enough of that.”

Their twin footsteps fall in sync, _ clang clang clang _ against the corrugated flooring. Clyde would really like this to be a spaceship, definitely - but it _ would _ be a bit of a pain in the bum to peg it on home to Bannerman Road.

No word from Sarah Jane and Sky, and no word from Rani. Neither Clyde nor Luke have phone signal, to make matters worse.

“No windows, just lights - no exits, just _ doors_,” Clyde says, frustrated. “All we’ve got are our brains and the clothes on our backs.”

“It’s done us alright so far,” says Luke.

“Yeah,” Clyde says darkly, “so we’d better keep up appearances and figure something out, before someone a bit more prepared finds us.”

“I don’t think they will,” Luke says, and spreads his arms. “Have you seen _ anyone _ or _ anything _ in this whole place? I think we’re here by ourselves, Clyde. Whatever that portal was didn’t look like it’d seen a lot of use.”

He bounces on his toe with the next step. Clyde might be imagining it, but Luke seems to have taken on a more _ floaty _ manner of movement, falling more slowly. More _ gently_. Both of them grin ridiculously when Luke uses it to his advantage, and he childishly taps the top of a high door frame with his palm as they pass through.

“Maybe the gravity _ is _ a bit skew-whiff,” Clyde admits.

“You’re literally only saying that because you’re jealous,” says Luke, a glint in his eye, “that you’re too small to reach. You don’t believe it at all!”

“You got me. You’re right. The gravity’s bang-up, and I’m cross you didn’t share the fizzy lifting drinks--”

“Shorthouse.”

“Rude!” he points. 

Their bickering almost distracts them from the fact that this current corridor contains a large window. To be fair, it’s well hidden - the darkness from outside the unit they’re in isn’t exactly letting through streams of bleedin’ sunlight, and the only sign that tips them off is their telltale reflections zipping by.

It’s all just… black. Luke puts his hand up against the glass, gazing into however far it goes.

“It’s nothingness,” says Clyde.

“No, it’s not,” Luke breathes - the revelation mists up the glass by his mouth - and he points at a random corner.

Following the line of sight reveals speckles against the shadows. Like white acrylic on sugar paper. For a second, Clyde thinks that the inside of the window must be dirty, or reflecting a spotlight from further inside the unit, but--

But that’s _ outside_.

It’s not nothingness.

“That’s a star,” Luke says. He looks stunned, like in the moment before telepathy puts someone to sleep. “That’s _ space_.”

And it is.

They’ve both seen space before, of course, but it’s different when you’re in the thick of it. There’s an abrupt awareness that comes hand in hand with actually _ seeing _ it, that it doesn’t stop no matter which direction you look in, and that if it _ does _ stop then you’re never going to travel that far to find out for sure. And that maybe no-one will, not naturally, not with linear journeying.

“You were right. We really are in space…”

“You’ll learn your lesson one day,” Luke says, and flashes him a cheeky grin.

“Yeah, well,” Clyde says, and doesn’t get any further. As he fumbles for a witty comeback, and as Luke starts to laugh at him, light starts pouring in through the window. Both of their necks crack as they whip their stares through the glass again.

It’s bright white, until it isn’t. When his eyes have adjusted, Clyde can see…

Clouds. And sea.

And _ Australia_.

“Oh my god,” he says.

That’s the planet, right in front of them. The soft gradient of the Earth fades out the atmosphere, blending into the black. Smoke and rain, in puffs of off-white, roll over the ocean, rippling with texture as they touch the ceiling of the world. It’s beautiful and shining and enormous, and close enough to imagine touching it.

He can’t tear his eyes away. Clyde thinks he might actually cry, but he’s not sure why.

“That’s Australia,” he says, “and it’s _ upside-down_.”

Luke’s laugh is slightly hysterical: “there is no upside-down in space, Clyde,” he chatters, “it’s all relative, and you have to take the third dimension into account from an altered perspective when the central points of reference are aligned with different celestial bodies, and anyway it’s _ sideways_, not upside-down--”

“Yeah, but we’ve got a point of reference,” says Clyde. “It’s Earth. We’re Earth-centric, and the South Pole is literally right around the corner. Curve. _ Whatever_.”

“Yeah,” says Luke.

He seems to have broken out of his scientific panic slightly. They both can’t look at each other, not yet not when Earth’s floating by like this. When they have the time to take it in for once, free from the worry of becoming too transfixed on something that’s _ literally _ heavenly.

“It’s going by so fast.”

“I think whatever we’re in is spinning in the opposite direction,” Luke says. “We’ll probably only get to see the Southern Hemisphere.”

“Oh, _ only_,” Clyde snorts. He blinks wetness out of his eyes. Maybe there’s a long German word for getting emotional in space. “It looks a lot bigger than it did on the Combat 3000 ship.”

“That’s because we’re in a closer orbit.”

“Closer than the moon?”

“Definitely.”

He’s pleased Luke’s with him. God, this is the coolest moment he’s had in forever. “Come on then, spaceboy,” he grins, “hit us with some Neil Armstrong wisdom. I _ know _you’ve memorised some.”

Luke shuffles next to him, adjusting his feet and straightening his back, as though he’s trying to deliver his speech with the correction dramatic tone.

And so he echoes it under his breath, as the oceans churn beneath them.

_ “On the trip home on Apollo 11, it suddenly struck me that that tiny pea, pretty and blue, was the Earth. I put up my thumb and shut one eye, and my thumb blotted out the planet Earth...” _

Imagine closing an eye to this.

Luke doesn’t mumble anything else. It might be that he’s lost his train of thought in front of the view. They continue to watch, as clouds that look like scales brush by them in strips, and the Southern Hemisphere looks right back, bold and unblinking.

Clyde frowns. “Neil must’ve had _ massive _ thumbs,” he says eventually.

It breaks the spell like a glow stick - not snapping or destroying, just changing the way the light moves around them. Luke’s smile creeps lopsidedly up his face. 

“He said that he didn’t feel big. It was the opposite, actually,” he clarifies._ “I didn’t feel like a giant… I felt very, very small.” _

That’s understandable.

Without warning, it occurs to Clyde that he’d do anything for Luke. Anything at all. And he’s always kind of felt like that. This weirdo-genius man’s got an amazing metal dog, and a _ completely _ lame yellow car, and endless facts at his fingertips, and Clyde.

He’s got Clyde, and Clyde is gonna be sure of that forever and ever. 

The side of his face prickles, with the easy instinct of knowing he’s being watched. With a streak of panic, he whips his head around to see, but it’s just Luke - who should be watching the Earth, for god’s sake, but he’s _ not_, he’s staring at Clyde instead.

Luke flushes.

“You can look at my mug any day of the week,” says Clyde, and thinks, _ blimey, I caught him out_. “We’ve got this brilliant moment in front of us, you idiot, take it in--”

“I am,” says Luke. “You’re part of it.”

Clyde can’t look at the Earth because he’ll cry, and he can’t look at Luke because he can already feel his face heating up awkwardly, so he stares at the floor instead, and takes a huge breath and lets it all out in a _ whoosh_. Sticking his hand out is the hardest bit - it’s clumsy and rubbish, he just lets the back of his hand bump against Luke’s knuckles - but the relief he feels when Luke accepts nearly bowls him over.

“I didn’t know,” murmurs Luke. His eyes dart, searching for something in the islands above Madagascar. “Not for sure.”

“How could you not know?!” Clyde says exasperatedly.

“You _ did _ take me to Combat 3000,” shrugs Luke. “But then… You said it was a mate thing. Not a _ date _ thing.”

“I didn’t know at the time, to be fair,” says Clyde, “but I reckon it’s been like this since we met. It was the first blinking day of Year 10 and I couldn’t stop looking at you.”

“You said a lot of stuff about what boys shouldn’t do, back then.”

He deflates. “Yeah… I did. I was being a half-wit.”

“Better than a no-wit,” Luke mutters, “I didn’t know anything at all about stuff like this.”

Clyde gives his arm a pull, just to get Luke to notice him again. “Are you having a laugh?” he says, grinning, “you were literally born perfect. Look at you! Not a flaw.”

“Yeah, all the pop songs about being gay are a bit specific these days,” Luke admits.

“Right? I mean, like, being cool and open about stuff. You’ve always been like that, you never compromised on saying or doing or showing what you thought. You made me so much better,” Clyde grins. He holds up their linked fingers, casting a long, connected shadow onto the floor of the space unit: “_look _ at us, holding hands in front of the whole wide world! Tiny Clyde would never’ve done that with anyone.”

There’s billions of people right beside them, going about their daily business. Ignorant to the fact that anyone’s up here who isn’t supposed to be.

The world keeps turning beneath their feet. Earth keeps on circling its star. Little wonders surround them, like the way Luke’s face is embarrassed and delighted and dusted with pink, his outline etched a glowing white in the secondhand sunlight.

He wants to say Luke’s name, but it’s not enough to shout it and it’s too much to whisper it.

It doesn’t matter anyway. Luke steps into his personal space, using Clyde’s hand and the gentler gravity as leverage, and waits. It’s torturous. He’s up close and personal, searching for permission with nerves scrawled over his expression, and it’s kind of not very fair. So Clyde cradles his jaw, with more affection than he thought he was capable of, and pulls him in.

When Luke’s lips close against his own, for the first time, he closes his eyes. His pupils are still lit up in whites and golds from the dazzle of the Earth. They’re still holding hands, Clyde’s right and Luke’s left, clutched at their sides like the gravity could fail at any moment and pull them apart.

Luke blinks and smiles a _ lot _ when they open their eyes again.

Clyde’s fairly sure he could take on the whole Trickster’s Brigade without issue at this particular moment. “Take _ that_, Jamie Ashworth from the Year 11 French trip!” he says loudly, whilst Luke bursts into a fit of cackling. “I just kissed Luke Smith in front of every landmark on Earth.”

Luke beams, and it's positively blinding. “Not _ every _ landmark,” he points out. “Just the ones on this side... The light side.”

Behind them, the southernmost tip of Africa floats by, like it’s caught in the apathetic current of a lazy river. Clyde barely notices.

“Which ones are we missing?”

“I think we got the Pyramids. Maybe Everest. Definitely the Great Barrier Reef and Victoria Falls,” Luke lists. “We’ve missed Machu Picchu, the Eiffel Tower--” (Clyde groans) “--the Grand Canyon, Stonehenge, the Great Wall...”

Clyde gestures, forgetting that he’s semi-in-control of Luke’s left arm too. “We can go to all of those. I’ll take you to the Great Wall, we can cross it off.”

“I think,” Luke says carefully, “that might be the one place Sarah Jane wouldn’t be impressed with us visiting.”

“Is it alien?!” Clyde asks excitedly. 

“Might be. No souvenirs. She’ll definitely kill you for that.”

“Crikey,” he says. “Better stay close to home, then, ey?”

Luke bites his lip. “Might be for the best.”

He suddenly feels shy, and swings their hands, fidgeting for the both of them. “I’ll take you to Stonehenge,” he says. “If you want, like… We could go.”

“I’ll drive,” Luke says, a twinkle in his eyes, “but we should probably finish sweeping this place and go _ home _ first.”

“S’right there. That’s home.”

He knocks hollow sounds into the glass with his free hand. Luke’s sight flickers back, and he and Clyde squint against the brightness for a final time: part of South America is slipping over the curve of the horizon, and they’re about to be plunged into the shadows of the space unit again.

“That’s our home,” Clyde says again, like he’s just realised it.

His luck is finally on the up, apparently - Luke squeezes his hand. “Come _ on_, Clyde,” he smiles, and pulls him back into the corridor. “I can’t reach the kettle from here. One more portal to find, and then we can have a brew and talk Stonehenge. Yeah?”

Clyde lets him lead the way.

Time to go home.

**Author's Note:**

> Ta for reading! Kudos/comments appreciated and the like. Give me a shout on tumblr if you need. ☺


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